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Key points
- The day often looks most threatening when viewed from the early hours.
- Hormone cycles and the structure of the morning play key roles in heightening anxious arousal.
- Physical and mental shifts can help you manage morning anxiety.
Anxiety levels fluctuate throughout the day. Many people find that their anxiety is highest during the morning hours, often before they even open their eyes and get out of bed.
You might feel like you just need to get through the first part of the day and at some point anxiety will quiet down. By the evening you may be feeling fairly calm and wonder why things felt so dire in the morning.
Many things can cause anxiety to spike shortly after waking up, from hormone cycles to mindset to how you structure your morning routine.
1. Cortisol Awakening Response
The stress hormone cortisol follows a circadian (roughly 24 hour) cycle in which it is highest in the morning, a pattern known as the cortisol awakening response (Clow et al., 2010).
Cortisol drives many important processes, such as triggering the release of glucose so your body can expend more energy; the rise in cortisol is adaptive, as it prepares your body and mind to face the day ahead. Anxiety is a common side effect of higher cortisol.
2. Time Stress
Most of us hit the ground running in the morning as we try to get ourselves ready and where we need to be on time. A lot might have to happen between waking up and your first commitment of the day.
Your morning routine may involve self-care activities like meditation, exercise, and a shower, as well as getting dressed, eating breakfast, perhaps walking the dog and getting the kids out the door, and dealing with a commute if you work outside the home. All that rushing around and the associated time crunch can heighten morning anxiety.
3. Anticipation of the Day Ahead
In the morning, all the things you have to do that day are in the hours ahead. Your mind is good at seeing the challenges stacked up in front of you as a big pile of difficulty and uncertainty.
You don't know how any of it will go or whether things will work out the way you want them to. Uncertainty about lots of outcomes you care about and are responsible for is a perfect setup for anxiety.
All you can do is think about them without being able to act on them. For most people, anxiety lives mostly in the anticipation, not in the tasks themselves, and anticipation is at its peak in the morning.
4. Feeling Inadequate to the Challenges
On top of a big list of challenges, you might also feel small and not up to the task. Perhaps you're still a bit groggy and are shaking off sleep inertia. Maybe your brain isn't yet firing at full capacity, as you're waiting for the caffeine to kick in.
In one way or another, you doubt you have what it takes to successfully handle this day, which feels too big for what you bring to it.
5. Worry About Squandering the Day
Finally, a new day can feel like a blank canvas that you're supposed to paint. Naturally you want to make the most of the opportunity, but there are infinite options for what you might do with it.
Will you be productive enough? Successful enough? Will the work you do have meaning and value? Freedom and responsibility can trigger an existential fear about wasting the finite time you're given—and ultimately wasting your life—by not spending it in the best ways.
How to Manage Morning Anxiety
There are many effective ways to find relief when your day starts with anxiety. Here are three options to begin with.
1. Move your body. You might be tempted to skip exercise in the morning and jump right into work. But immobility is usually not your friend when you're feeling anxious. Moderate to intense physical activity in the morning can relieve anxiety and start you off on the right foot for the rest of the day (Stonerock et al., 2015).
2. Reinterpret physiological arousal. Cortisol surges in the morning for good reason—to give you the energy you'll need to face the challenges ahead. Start recoding the buzz of arousal in your body as energy to handle everything that will come your way.
3. Focus only on what's in front of you. When your mind is anxious about all the stuff in the day ahead, reel it back in to whatever is happening right now. All you ever need to deal with is what you're actually doing, whether buttoning your shirt, making a smoothie, packing your bag, or turning left on your way to work. Let the things ahead know you see them and that there will be a time for them, and now is not that time.
References
Clow, A., Hucklebridge, F., Stalder, T., Evans, P., & Thorn, L. (2010). The cortisol awakening response: More than a measure of HPA axis function. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 35, 97-103.
Stonerock, G. L., Hoffman, B. M., Smith, P. J., & Blumenthal, J. A. (2015). Exercise as treatment for anxiety: Systematic review and analysis. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 49, 542-556.
